


Let him out

by ClaraCivry (Kat_Of_Dresden)



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Gen, Hurt Number Five | The Boy, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy Whump, So yeah some Five angst, for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:15:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28514040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat_Of_Dresden/pseuds/ClaraCivry
Summary: Five is drugged, beaten, and locked up in a cupboard.He's angry, and he's sad, and doesn't have any hopes of being rescued.But maybe things will be different this time.For the bad things happen bingo prompt "Locked up and left behind"
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & The Hargreeves (Umbrella Academy)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 181





	Let him out

"LET ME OUT!!!"

They had left him there. Again, and for who knew how long. 

They had let hi there, locked up, drugged, beaten, unable to use his powers, trapped.

"Let me out...."

This wasn't like him.

Five was logical, Five was resilient, Five before before acting and he certainly didn't cry and rock himself hiding his bruised face in between his knees. The apocalypse had taught just how precious water was, and that wasting it on tears was nothing short of a crime. Yet another end of the world in itself. And also, stupid, and useless and pathetic. And Five had never been any of those things.

But... they had left him there. They had come together, all the siblings, and they had left him there, abandoned, alone, again alone, hurt and alone, drugged and alone, scared, and fucking alone.

It was supposed to be something easy. They were all going together to avoid someone going off track and causing yet another irreversible tear in the timeline, but it was supposed to be an easy mission. They got in the house while it was empty, they got the items Five needed for his machine and maybe packed some weapons too. Nothing else, nothing more, just picking up some stuff.

Only the owners of the house had come back too early, and they had lashed out. Formers physics prodigy Janna Kowalski and his former military brother were living in isolation - mostly because they had serious mental issues, and among them persecutory complex. This people were obsessed with the idea that someone was coming after them. And when they found their home broken into, when they found strangers in it...

They were prepared, and they were ruthless. They didn't ask questions - in their mind there was only an option, these people were part of "the system" that wanted them dead, and they needed to be rid of them. They had syrings full of sedatives with them. Five had only received that instead of deadly force because "I don't want to off a kid", the brother had said.

But they needed to make sure he didn't escape, tell his others "system" fellows where the siblings were. So they roughed him up a bit, doubled the seadtives, roughed him up again and locked him up there, because while they didn't want to kill a kid, he was a loose end. Had to go. And then left, because this location was not safe anymore. Left forever. They kept to themselves, so nobody would miss them. And he would remain there, in that little cupboard, screaming and crying forever, abandoned, forgotten, gone, again, alone, again.

He screamed into the small walls of the cupboard. Pounded, punched, kicked. Screamed again.

"LET ME OUT!!!"

Trapped. He was trapped again, trapped, trapped, trapped, trapped!

All his life, all his very long and painful life he'd spent feeling absolutely trapped and trying to escape, struggling to escape, doing impossible things to escape only to find himself trapped again.

He'd been trapped at the academy, trapped under the thumb of a cruel ruler that didn't let him act, explore, be all that he could be. He was trapped under stupid rules (why did Luther have to go first?), by stupid laws he didn't care about, stupid secrecy, stupid "training". Trapped on that house they couldn't ever escape.

So he escaped, yes he did, and found himself trapped, once again, in a wasteland of seemingly his own creation, but this time alone. So painfully and immensely alone. He was trapped in a world where he couldn't ever cry because he couldn't spare the water, and he he grew up there, and nearly starved there, every day thinking about how to escape, how to fix it.

And then the commission came, and he trapped in a job that made him hate himself, in a strange debt with a strange woman, trapped in an organisation he knew to be extremely deadly.

oh yeah, and then trapped in the sixties, and then trapped in the wrong timeline, and now trapped in a damn closet.

He put his over tired head in the back of the damn things, closed his eyes, tried to think.

He wanted to think, wanted to get out of here, and that was how he'd managed everything in life, right? Thinking, finding the equations, finding strength when there was none... But sometimes, thinking hurt.

And sometimes, thoughts were blurred by stupid stupid stupid emotions.

.... Where they even going to realise he was gone? They weren't coming for him, he was certain of that. Yeah, maybe that was partly his own fault, for always disappearing and doing his own thing... But it wasn't like he didn't try to get the rest of the people, they just didn't care, or didn't want to, or were too busy, and the world needed saving, because time was running out....

Maybe they didn't even care that he was gone. Nobody seemed too happy that he was back the first time, and in the sixties they practically abhorred him, hated his appearance. Maybe they were happy that he was gone. He, who had done so much, who had missed, wh had longed... and foolishly thought that maybe he was being missed back...

Huh, who knew? Maybe he was actually pathetic.

His head was spinning, the effect of the sedatives and the caffeine and his NEED TO STAY ALERT fighting inside him. Would he run out of air first? Develop some internal bleed in his brain from the hit to the head and die from that? What a stupid death for the greatest assassin time had ever known.

"Let me out"

They weren't coming.

Hours had passed (hadn't they? Five's concept of passage of time... was a bit warped) and no sounds had come. He'd desperately tried to use his powers, but couldn't. They were too far away, beyond the lingering effect of the drugs, too far beyond all the pain and the light headedness and...

A couple of tears went down his face, only making his headache worse.

Nobody was coming for him. This was the end, and he'd been locked up and left behind.

He'd given so much to save his family... And his family probably didn't even know he was gone. So he would die like he lived: trapped. Thinking of an escape. There was no way out.

Until there was.

Someone opened the door.

Smiled a cheeky smile.

Let him out.

*

Lila didn't know how she knew, but she knew.

Maybe it had something to do with being a kid trapped in a closet herself. Maybe it was some power she had picked up along the way, but when the siblings had come back without Five, she had somehow known.

That he was locked up. And in pain.

Maybe she'd crossed paths with an empath or something, and it had stayed. Who knew.

And who knew that she actually cared that Five was in pain? Somehow she did. He'd been the first to open her eyes about the handler, and she had a feeling that he'd had the chance to kill her many times, and hadn't. Maybe just out of respect for Diego but...

She hadn't warmed up to that mean old man.

At all.

But she wasn't going to let him die either, was she?

So she went to the house, and even though Diego told her that he was surely gone on another merry quest and that this was a waste of time, she went in. And smelled blood. Opened a cupboard door and...

It was funny, because despite being in the body of a teenager, Five had never looked young to Lila. Not until that moment, at least.

With those bright eyes, split lip, bruises on his hands, cheekbone, and all that blood from the bash to the head, he looked so young.

"... came?" he managed to say.

"Yeah, someone came, Five. You're not going to die inside of those four walls."

His eyes closed. This kid needed medical attention, so she picked him up in her arms and looked at those big, surprised eyes.

It came out of her, as she walked out, without thinking.

"We're not leaving you behind. You can rest now - you're free."

Five passed out.

Lila felt.... better.

Maybe it was closure. Maybe it was the empathy thing. Maybe it was Diego coming and getting all worked up "I'll show those bastards the taste of my knives".

Maybe it was the fact that this time, no one had to end alone, or trapped.

Who knew.

Today, she'd let him out, and it was a good day. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! 
> 
> There should be more "Lila and Five become uneasy/sassy buddies" content, methinks
> 
> You know you want to comment ;)


End file.
